1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a connector, and particularly relates to an optical-electric connector which has a shielding shell.
2. Description of Prior Arts
Miniaturized audio visual apparatuses such as a DVD (Digital Versatile Disk) player/recorder, MD (Mini-Disk) player/recorder, etc., portable audio apparatuses such as an MD portable player/recorder, CD portable player/recorder, memory type audio apparatus (audio apparatus using a memory card), etc., personal computer, mobile communication apparatuses such as a mobile phone, pocket or portable telephone etc., or the like have been miniaturized more and more in their external configurations or shapes and dimensions or sizes, and accordingly, an input terminals and/or output terminals built in or mounted to these electronic apparatuses have been also miniaturized. Particularly, in recent years, with the advance of optical connector mounted on thereto as an optical signal input terminal for receiving an optical or light digital signal or an optical signal output terminals for outputting an optical connector to the optical cable.
An optical connector mounted to any one of various electronic apparatuses and appliances has a light receiving element or light emitting element housed in the connector body thereof, and for instance, one of two optical plugs mounted to an optical cable at opposed ends thereof respectively, that transmits an optical or light digital signal is directly plugged in the optical connector, so that an optical digital signal is transmitted from the optical cable to the optical connector or from the optical connector to the optical cable.
As shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,475,001 and 6,588,947, a conventional audio jack usually comprises a shielding shell for avoiding the Electro Magnetic Interference (EMI). However, this kind of shielding shell can not enclose the whole connector, U.S. Pat. No. 6,050,854 provides another kind of the audio jack. The audio jack comprises a shielding shell can enclose the upper face, the back face and the lateral face of the connector. A pair of grounding tabs extend forwardly and downwardly from a front side of the shielding shell. The grounding tabs abut against a metal enclosure after the audio jack is installed in a personal computer for promptly directing noise to the metal enclosure. Obviously, the shielding shell of such a structure takes a big size on the printed circuit board along a front-to-back direction.
Hence, it is desirable to have an optical-electric connector with an improved shielding shell to overcome the above-mentioned disadvantages of the prior art.